Body image and healthy attitudes

The last week of February is designated as National Eating Disorders Week (February 25-March 3). This year’s theme is “Let’s Get Real” and hopes to expand our conversation about the realities of eating disorders and encouraging people to share on social media and other places their personal experiences with eating disorders and unhealthy relationships with food.

Eating disorders affect 20 million women and 10 million men in the U.S.

Research definitively shows that body image, poor self-esteem, dieting fads, and fat shaming all contribute to the development of these disorders. You may be thinking, “Wait, I don’t have an eating disorder.” But most of us have some unhealthy habits when it comes to eating and feeling satiated and healthy body image. Let’s face it, we have a complicated relationship with food in this country.

From our earliest days, food becomes connected to feelings of love. As infants we are hungry, we are held, fed, and comforted and this feels safe. As we continue to grow messages about food and our bodies become powerful shapers of our self-esteem and our sense of confidence. Usually young children have naturally healthy eating habits. They listen to their own messages of feeling full and unless they are in abusive or chaotic homes, have no real issues with food. They spend almost no time criticizing their bodies or comparing their looks to others.

As counselors, we are seeing younger and younger girls, and now many boys, with early signs of eating disorders. During my 25 years of practice, this has certainly been the case. The reasons are not clear and would take more space than we have here to consider, but certainly social media and the image of perfection it pushes, as well as unrealistic expectations towards excellence in grades, appearance, achievements are contributing factors.

The organization Educate Empower Kids suggests these 10 steps to Positive Body Image. I work on these with kids and teens in my practice and challenge everyone to read these and then choose two or three that really resonate and put them somewhere that you can see them daily. For our children, for our friends and for our loved ones, let’s accept what real bodies look like; let’s think about the critical, body shaming, comments we use around our families and let’s commit to more acceptance of our appearance and our bodies.

Ten Steps to Positive Body Image

Appreciate all your body can do – it is an amazing machine

Keep a top 10 list of things you like about yourself that ARE NOT related to appearance

Remind yourself that True Beauty is a state of mind, not found in the state of your body

Look at yourself (and your kids) as a whole person, not focusing on body parts

Surround yourself with positive people

Shut down those voices in your head that say your body is “not right” or that you are “bad” and work to replace those with positive self-talk

Wear clothes that are comfortable and make you feel good about your body

Become a critical viewer of social media and media messages; they are scripted and often not real

Do something nice for yourself: give a message to your body that you appreciate it

Use the time and energy that you might have spent worrying about food, calories or weight to do something that helps others